Last time I checked, they gathered middle of last year to take measures for sparing water, but they eventually decided to do nothing, and instead they let the emergency measures trigger in as the level of the water got lower and reached a point of alert at the end of last year.

Whatever the new emergency measures are, they refused to apply those themselves at the time and preferred to let the automatic mechanism do it for them. They were probably afraid to be the ones who bring the bad news to their farmers. It would be political suicide. That’s only speculation of course.